Revelation 19

Revelation — Steve Gregg

Next in this series

Revelation 20

00:00

Revelation 19

RevelationSteve Gregg

Steve Gregg provides an in-depth analysis of Revelation 19, discussing the fall of Babylon and the marrying of the faithful woman by God. He also touches on the concept of the bride and groom, emphasizing the importance of righteousness and how it connects to the clothing worn by the bride. Gregg further delves into the war that Christ conducts and the defeat of the beast and false prophet, ultimately leading up to the judgment of those whose names are not found in the book of life.

Transcript

It's obvious that chapter 19 begins where chapter 18 left off, where Babylon the great has fallen with much lament and much rejoicing, depending on who's looking at the situation. The kings of the earth, the merchants and the shipmasters who did business with her and committed fornication with her and got rich from their dealings with her. They've of course been wailing and mourning over her fall, but the heavens have a different attitude altogether.

According to chapter 18, verse 20, it says, rejoice over her, O heaven, and you, holy apostles and prophets, for God has avenged you on her. And so verse 19 says, after these things I heard a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven saying, Alleluia, salvation and glory and honor and power to the Lord our God. For true and righteous are his judgments because he has judged the great harlot who corrupted the earth with her fornication, and he has avenged on her the blood of his servants shed by her.

So this is really pretty much the last we're going to be thinking about Babylon. There's rejoicing over her demise, and as I said, I personally believe that the fall of Babylon in these previous chapters is the fall of Jerusalem. The other option, I believe, is that it's the fall of Rome, but I think it's less likely because it is at the fall of Jerusalem that a major transition in the covenants took place.

Of course, a major transition took place at the cross. Jesus instituted the new covenant, but the old covenant was still kind of functioning. It was, as the writer of Hebrews says, obsolete.

In Hebrews 8.13, it says where there's a new covenant, the old one is obsolete. And he said, is about ready to vanish away. At the time of writing, the writer of Hebrews saw that the trappings of the old covenant, the temple, the sacrifices, the priesthood, all those things relate to the old covenant, including Israel's special role as a God's special nation.

All that was about ready to be swept away, and it was, when the temple was destroyed and when Jerusalem was burned down. So, although the new covenant was instituted by Christ at his death, he rendered the old obsolete, but not completely gone. It was soon to vanish away, and it did vanish away, as Jesus said, within that generation.

He said, this generation will not pass before all these things happen. So, this transitional generation saw the introduction of the new covenant and the abolition of the old covenant, and there was this time there where it would appear that there was a little bit of both kind of hanging around. But with the fall of Jerusalem, the total end of the old covenant permanently, finally and visibly, is marked.

And therefore, it causes the new covenant to shine forth as the only remaining means by which God is relating to mankind through Christ. And what we see now, in just the next few verses, is that there's the new covenant bride that is now in view. This would not be so particularly at the fall of Rome.

The fall of Rome did not mark any particular transition in God's cosmic dealings, but the fall of Jerusalem did. And therefore, we have this also as evidence that Jerusalem falling is what we're talking about with the fall of Babylon, because the fall of the harlot clears the way for God to marry a faithful woman. Now, we might say, are you saying the church has been faithful to Christ? Yes, the church has been.

The institution that calls itself the church has been very much a harlot in many of the years and many of the locations where we've existed in the last 2,000 years. That which calls itself the church has not always been faithful, and sometimes, not only sometimes, most of the time, it's been just as unfaithful as Israel was. But the church is not that organization, and that is what makes it so difficult for the testimony of Christianity, is that there are those who are not Christian and are not the church who have assumed the label.

And by assuming the label have involved the reputation of the church and of Christ in the most scandalous behavior. But the true church is composed of those who are born of the Spirit of God, who have Christ as their head, and are thus part of His body. And if Christ is your head, that means He is directing you.

He is your Lord. Obviously, not everybody, in fact, probably most, not most of the people who have been in the organized churches could fit that description. I'm not ready to proffer any guesses about what the percentages might be, but it's quite obvious, and anyone who goes to church or has gone to church all their life, as I have, would know this intuitively.

That there's a certain percentage, and not necessarily a small percentage, in most churches of people who are there for reasons other than being true disciples of Jesus. Jesus said, unless you forsake all that you have, you can't be my disciple. Unless you take up your cross and follow me, you cannot be my disciple.

Unless you hate your father, mother, wife, and children, and your own life, you cannot be my disciple. Now, once you begin to read Jesus' terms for discipleship, you begin to look at the persons in the church crowd, and maybe at yourself. And you say, was there some reason I thought these people were disciples? Are they? Am I? And, in many cases, I'm afraid we'd have to give an answer that is disappointing.

But the true church has always been made up of that remnant, that group, and although they are in the minority in Christendom, they are nonetheless millions in numbers, according to Revelation, who have been the true followers of Christ. Who have washed themselves in the blood of the Lamb, and made themselves white, and who have been faithful unto death. And they overcome the enemy by the word of their testimony in the blood of the Lamb, and by not loving their lives.

Now, again, we can say, Lord, is that me? I hope so. And, it should not be difficult for a Christian to say, of course. Of course.

I mean, that's what I signed up for. That's what being a Christian means. It doesn't mean getting a ticket to heaven and keeping a pew warm.

It means joining the army, and being part of God's plan to conquer the world, and to rule the world forever and ever and ever. That's not a small thing, and it doesn't cost a cheap amount. It costs everything.

And those who have understood that, and I'm afraid that gospel preachers in our time do not necessarily always make that so clear, so people respond to something they think is the gospel, and they don't make a decision that resembles anything like the decision to be a disciple of Jesus. And therefore, they become part of the church, without really becoming followers of Christ. But, throughout history, there have been some who responded to the gospel exactly as it's written, in the Bible, and are the true Christians.

And, we know that because John saw a multitude that no one could number, from every nation, kindred, and tongue, praising God in heaven, who were among this number. And that number, that company, are the bride. They are the faithful.

And, if one of them becomes unfaithful, they're no longer in. If a person defects from Christ, they're not in the church anymore. And therefore, the church always is comprised of those who are faithful.

And therefore, the church has always been a faithful bride. And so, we see the destruction of the harlot bride, the harlot wife. True, it doesn't say the harlot was ever a wife, but in the imagery of the Old Testament, it was always the harlotry of Judah and Israel that God complained about, because that was his wife.

He didn't complain about other nations that were worshipping other gods. That was their business. They weren't his people anyway.

His complaint is against his people, who worship other gods. That's the harlot, his bride. And that harlot has experienced, basically, the punishment that is due.

What is due to a harlot, or to an adulterous wife? In the Old Testament, the very law under which Jerusalem lived, the penalty was stoning. Or, as we see in verse 21 of chapter 18, a mighty angel took up a stone, like a great millstone, and threw it into the sea. Reminds us of Jesus saying, if you would stumble, one of these little ones who believes in me.

And he's talking to the Jews who are trying to discount him, and trying to dissuade people from following him. Says, you'd be better off if you had a millstone around your neck and were thrown into the sea. Well, that's exactly what God now does to that segment of the Jewish population that resisted, and sought to dissuade, and to stumble, the few who followed him.

They're thrown into the sea, and that's the end of Babylon. And now we're going to see who replaces Babylon. It says in verse 3, again they said, Alleluia, and her smoke rises forever and ever.

And the 24 elders and the 4 living creatures fell down and worshipped God, who sat on the throne, saying, Amen, Alleluia. Now, it says, her smoke rises up forever and ever. This is a very good example of the apocalyptic use of forever and ever.

And smoke. You remember when we encountered this idea of smoke rising forever and ever previously in chapter 14. In a passage that traditionally has often been applied to hell.

And it talks about those who worship the beast, and his image. And in Revelation 14, 10 and 11, it says, from the middle of verse 10, it says, And he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever.

And they have no rest day or night, who worship the beast, and his image, whoever receives the mark of his name. Well, if it says the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever, it has often been thought, this refers to eternal torment. In hell.

But then we have this. Babylon's smoke ascends forever and ever also. Are we to suggest that the city of Jerusalem is, that the smoke of its burning is still ascending at this moment? Now, this is not talking about post-mortem.

It's very obvious. Her smoke of her burning is mentioned several times in chapter 18. For example, in chapter 18, verse 9. It says, the kings of the earth who committed fornication live luxuriously with her, will weep and lament when they see the smoke of her burning.

Likewise, in verses 17, 18. All the shipmasters and the sailors, as many as trade on the sea, stood at a distance and cried out when they saw the smoke of her burning. This is visible smoke, visible to survivors.

This is not hell. This is talking about the burning of the city and its smoke going up. Just like when Abraham looked toward Sodom the day after it was burned up.

And it says, the smoke of the city arose like the smoke of a great furnace. That is the next day, when Abraham looked in the direction of Sodom, there's nothing but smoke. There had been fire and brimstone the day before, but now only smoke.

There were no people suffering there anymore, they were dead. But the smoke was not hellfire, it was the smoke that could be seen in the sky. By a man on earth.

That is the smoke that the shipmasters are depicted as seeing, and the kings of the earth are seeing. That's her smoke, and we're told it rises forever and ever. This is not describing a post-mortem situation.

It's not even talking about an individual person suffering. It's talking about an entity, a city. And the smoke rising forever is obviously figurative, because the smoke of that city is not rising now.

You will not find, if you go to Israel, that the smoke over Jerusalem is still rising. But that's not too surprising if you learn to understand the language of the apocalyptic prophetic scriptures. Even the non-apocalyptic, non-prophetic scriptures use that kind of language.

Look at Jude. If you look at the book of Jude, verse 7, just before the book of Revelation, Jude, verse 7, says, Now, Sodom and Gomorrah have been made an example by God, because they've experienced the judgment of eternal fire. Now, again, eternal fire? Many people would say, well, that must mean they're burning in hell.

How could that be an example to unbelievers? Unbelievers can't see anyone burning in hell. This is talking about a visible example that God has given to the world of how He will deal with people like that. They have become an example by suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.

The fire that consumed Sodom and Gomorrah was eternal fire. After all, it was from God, and He's eternal. Our God is a consuming fire.

God is a consuming eternal fire, and they have suffered the vengeance of His wrath. But, you might get the impression, if you didn't know otherwise, that Jude is saying that if we went over to the Dead Sea area today, we could see where Sodom was, that there's fire burning there to this day. It's eternal, never-ending fire.

This is the language of Scripture when it's using imagery of judgment. Judgment is often said to be eternal or forever, and in situations where it actually isn't, it's poetic language. Likewise, we're told in chapter 19, verse 3 of Revelation, her, that is Babylon's smoke, rises forever and ever.

It's not a reference to hell. It's a reference to the lastingness of her judgment. Verse 4, and the 24 elders and 4 living creatures fell down and worshipped.

Verse 5, then a voice came from the throne, saying, Praise our God, all you His servants and those who fear Him, both small and great. And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters, and as the sound of mighty thundering, saying, Alleluia, for the Lord God omnipotent reigns. Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory.

For the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready. And to her was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright. For the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.

Then He said to me, Right, blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb. And He said to me, These are the true sayings of God. And I fell at the feet and worshipped Him, because, oh, excuse me, but He said to me, See that you do not do that.

I am your fellow servant and of your brethren who have the testimony of Jesus. Worship God, for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. Now, here we have the announcement of the marriage of the Lamb.

The marriage supper of the Lamb has come. The bride has made herself ready. Who is this bride? Well, of course, we know it's the church.

We know from other places in Scripture, as for example, when Paul talks about marriage in Ephesians 5, he says that for this cause a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife. The two shall be one flesh. Paul says this is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.

He says in 2 Corinthians 11 that he had betrothed the church as a chaste virgin to Christ. Obviously betrothed to be married. This is the church that is in the covenant with God.

Now, the old covenant has passed. A new covenant has come. There's a new bride.

A bride is taken by striking a covenant. A marriage takes place when a covenant is formed between two individuals. And thus, it is the new covenant that defines this marriage.

Now, by the way, I would just jump ahead for the moment to chapter 21 and show you by way of confirmation. Revelation 21.9 said, Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls filled with the seven last plagues came to me and talked with me, saying, Come, I will show you the bride, the Lamb's wife. All right.

Well, we read about the Lamb's wife, of course, in verse 7 of chapter 19. So, we're going to be reading about the same individual here. Come with me, I'll show you the bride, the Lamb's wife.

Verse 10, chapter 21.10 says, And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great high mountain and showed me the great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God. So, he's shown the bride, which is clearly the church, and the church is the great city, the new Jerusalem. And that's not too surprising because the other city, the old Jerusalem, was likened to a harlot, Babylon.

And so, we've had two cities, two women, contrasted with each other. It's a mixed metaphor, of course, because it's hard to even imagine a city as described in chapter 21, verse 2, adorned as a bride. How do you adorn a city? How do you put on bridal clothing on a city? Obviously, the imagery is strange, but it is nonetheless communicating what we need to know.

One city is down, a new city is up. One wife is divorced and executed for her crimes. A new wife, faithful, is now being taken.

Now, it says the wedding supper of the Lamb has come, or the marriage of this Lamb has come, and his wife has made herself ready. Now, obviously, most of us, perhaps, have been taught to see this as the second coming of Christ. That is, we are the bride of Christ to be.

We are going to marry Christ when he comes back. You know the parable of the ten virgins, where the virgins are waiting for the appearance of the bridegroom to come to the wedding. And we understand that.

I do, anyway. Some do not. But I understand that to be about the second coming of Christ.

And the five wise virgins are prepared for him when he comes. The five foolish virgins are not. But it is the wedding that he is coming to.

And it seems like that is a parable about the second coming of Christ. If it is not, then the point I am making is, you can just set aside, but I believe that it is. And I have certainly been raised thinking of this coming of the marriage supper as a reference to the second coming of Christ.

But that is not necessarily the case. For example, if you will look over at the book of Matthew, in Matthew 9, verse 14, it says, The bridegroom is with his friends right now. This must be, I guess, the bachelor party or whatever.

He has not yet gone to take his wife at this point, but he is preparing to. He is at the bachelor party with his friends. This reference to Jesus as the bridegroom, which he makes here speaking to John's disciples, no doubt was intended to remind them of something their own master John the Baptist had said to them back in John chapter 3. Because at that time, John's disciples came to him and said, This is John 3, verse 26.

They said, Then he says in verse 29, But the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice. Therefore this joy of mine is fulfilled. John says, I'm the matchmaker here.

I'm not the bridegroom. I'm the one bringing the bride to the groom. The one who gets the bride is not the friend, but the groom.

And Jesus is the groom. The people are the bride. And so John had told his disciples to view Jesus and his people this way, as a bride coming to her groom.

And Jesus had told the same disciples, or at least some disciples of John, that they should remember that the bridegroom's friends don't mourn and fast during the bachelor party, or during the wedding feast either. While the bridegroom is with them, they eat and rejoice. And then of course when he's taken away from them, that's another story.

Now if you turn to Matthew chapter 22, we have this parable about the wedding feast. Matthew 22, 1, And Jesus answered and spoke to them again by parables and said, The kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who arranged a marriage for his son. This is of course the kingdom of God, the marriage.

And he sent out his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding, and they were not willing to come. That is the evangelists taking the gospel, calling people to come to the kingdom, to the wedding feast. And they wouldn't come.

And again he sent out other servants saying, Tell those who are invited, See I've prepared my dinner. My oxen and fatted cattle are killed, and all things are ready. Come to the wedding.

Now the food is prepared. There's no eaters, no one's showing up. But they made light of it and went their ways, one to his own farm, one to his business, and the rest seized his servants, treated them spitefully, and killed them.

But when the king heard about it, he was furious, and he sent out his armies and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city. Then he said to his servants, The wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. Therefore go into the highways, and as many as you find, invite to the wedding.

So those servants went out into the highways and gathered together all whom they found, both bad and good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests. But when the king came in to see the guests, he saw a man there who did not have on a wedding garment. And the long and the short of it is, he kicked him out.

Now what is this about? This is about a wedding, and the story is punctuated in the middle by the burning of a city. The city is burned because it is the city of the first persons invited who rejected the invitation. After the city is burned, the invitation goes out to others.

The first persons invited to come into the kingdom of God through the preaching of the gospel were the Jews. And because they killed the messengers in many cases, God sent out his armies, the Roman armies, and burned up their city and destroyed them. It is passed over with a single verse, but it is a very major transition.

This is the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 because the first friends of God who were invited, his covenant people Israel, they did not come into the kingdom. They did not accept Christ. They did not want a part of this.

And so after that, he sends his messengers further out, further away to the Gentiles, out to the highways and byways to bring in as many as they could. And eventually the wedding feast was filled, no doubt, with these guests who were invited from all over the world, from the Gentile nations. Then, of course, there was a judgment, and he had to clean house.

He had to go in and make sure that only those who belonged there were there. But notice that after the city of Jerusalem is destroyed, there is this influx. And this is still the wedding feast.

Now, in a Jewish wedding feast, which sometimes went on for weeks, the bride and the groom might not be joined for some time, although their friends have come to the wedding. At the end of the feast, the bride goes off with the groom. But here we can see that the feast was announced before Jerusalem was destroyed, but it was not attended, not significantly anyway, until after Jerusalem was destroyed.

Now, when people begin to come into the kingdom of God after the destruction of Jerusalem, this is a process. The wedding feast lasts a while. In our case, it's been about 2,000 years, it seems.

Gentiles are still being invited in and coming in. There is a time yet future when God will come and sort it out, because good and bad are coming in. He's going to sort them out.

So the present age is the age of the wedding feast while the guests are arriving. This is the wedding feast. Now, there's not been a joining of the bride and groom yet.

That will be at the second coming of Christ, but Revelation 19, verse 7 does not announce the union of the bride and the groom, but rather simply the coming of the wedding. And therefore, at the fall of Jerusalem, the announcement is made to the world that the wedding is now. Come now.

Don't wait. The food is ready. The food is ready even before the city was burned.

So it's not like these people are coming and waiting for a feast to later show up. They're coming to a feast where the food's on the table. It's getting cold.

Show up now. And so in this age, since the destruction of Jerusalem and the influx of Gentiles, we are coming to a feast. Of course, when the early Christians met, they actually had a literal love feast when they met.

A celebration. A celebration of salvation. And of being joined to Christ.

Of having a, you know, rejoicing in the festivities. Now, on the one hand, the church is seen as the bride, but as is the case with Revelation commonly, the metaphors get mixed. Because it says in verse 9, Then he said to me, Right blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb.

In other words, the invited guests. In the story of Matthew 22, the church is comprised of people who are invited to the feast. The bride is not actually in the picture in that parable.

The bride is not mentioned, is not identified. So the parable doesn't involve this confusion. It just says in the parable of Matthew 22, the king was making a marriage for his son.

Presumably there's a bride somewhere, but she's not mentioned. What is mentioned is that people are invited. And so the church is comprised of people who accepted the invitation.

We are the invited guests. But of course, in the mixture of metaphors, we are also the bride. And Revelation mentions both together here.

Now it says the bride, in verse 7, had made herself ready. She's prepared for this. And how she made herself ready is the way a bride gets ready, is getting her clothes on, getting her bridal gown on, and this is grace, it's a grant from God, to be arrayed with fine linen, clean and bright.

For the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. The church is not prepared to meet Jesus until it is clothed with its righteous acts. Now this is not salvation by works.

This is granted to her. The ability to live a righteous life is a grant. It is by the grace of God that we are transformed from sinners to saints.

It is by the grace of God that we live differently than before. It is by the grace of God that we do good works and our lives are righteous in behavior. It's a grant.

It's a grace. But it is nonetheless, it shows like the clothing of a bride shows. When you see a bride, you notice her clothing.

It's visible. And so the righteous acts of the saints are visible. They're outward behavior.

There's not some kind of a hidden, imputed righteousness that no one can tell you have but by faith, you have this hidden secret righteousness inside that only God can see. That's not Christianity. It is true that we are imputed righteous by faith in Christ, but being imputed righteous does not happen without a corresponding transformation.

And if, if you look at 1 John 3, verse 7, 1 John, the same author, chapter 3 and verse 7, he says, little children, let no one deceive you. Now, just try to find out if what the preachers you've heard are deceiving you or not. Don't let anyone deceive you.

He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as he is righteous. Now, he doesn't say you become righteous by practicing righteousness, but of course we are righteous by faith. But how do you know if you have been made righteous by faith? Well, it shows in the way you live.

If you practice righteousness, then they obviously aren't righteous, according to this. Don't let anyone deceive you about that. Don't let anyone tell you that you can live in sin and still be a righteous person by faith.

That's not known in the scripture. No such thing is known in scripture. When Paul asked the question in Romans 6, 15, what then, shall we continue in sin because we're not under law, but under grace? He said, God forbid.

Don't you know that the one to whom you yield your members to obey, if you're obeying sin, then you're a slave of sin. You're not a slave of God. You're not righteous if you're living in sin.

You're not righteous by faith. You're not righteous by anything. You're not righteous by any description if you're not living obediently to Christ.

Not perfectly, of course. No one's perfect, and Paul made that clear in Romans 7. But the point is, we don't live in sin. Following Christ looks like something, and it looks like doing what he does.

It looks like being like him. It looks like obeying what he says. That's what following Christ looks like.

And those who do so are righteous. They are righteous by grace, but they are recognizably righteous by their behavior. And so, don't let anyone deceive you.

The person who practices righteousness, that is a righteous person. That's a person who is, in fact, imputed righteous because that is the evidence that somebody has been saved. What do you think it is we're saved from? The angel told Joseph his name is because he'll save his people from their sins.

If you're saved from your sins, then how could you live in your sins? Obviously, that doesn't make any sense. It's like if you're out drowning in the sea, and someone throws you a life preserver, and says, here, I'll save you. You say, well, can I still stay out here in the sea and still be saved from this? No, I don't think so.

Being saved from it means you're pulled out of it. If you're saved from your sins, you're pulled out of your life of sins. You live a righteous life, and you can tell who the bride is by what she's wearing.

She's wearing white linen, clean and bright, which is the righteous acts, the behavior of Christians. We might say, well, we don't want to be too harsh in our judgment. Well, you're right, we shouldn't be harsh in our judgment.

We shouldn't be too stupid in our judgment either. We shouldn't assume that someone who isn't living for Christ is a Christian because Jesus said, whoever continues in my words, you're a disciple if you continue in his words. Obedience to Christ is a mark of discipleship.

Disobedience to Christ as a habit is the mark that you're not a disciple, no matter what you claim to be. Now, John actually was so overwhelmed that he fell down to worship at the feet of this angel, but he was rebuked for that. This is going to happen again in chapter 22.

There's something apparently about the weightiness of these revelations that is, I suppose if you were there, perhaps you had to be there, but it's overwhelming. When John first saw Jesus in Revelation chapter 1, he also fell down as if he were dead. This does not seem to have been a deliberate act of worship, but just, you know, he lost all his strength like Daniel did several times when he saw visions.

He lost all his strength and just collapsed. He had to be touched to be set back on his feet and had to be strengthened supernaturally. In this case, that's not what's happening.

John is deliberately bowing down, falling down to worship this messenger. Now, you'd think the apostle would be smarter than that, and I would too. Therefore, this must have been really impressive that it would overwhelm his natural awareness that you don't bow down and worship angels.

He's just not thinking, and he gets rebuked for it. Don't do that. He says, worship God, for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.

What's that mean? Well, obviously, it can be taken more than one way, but it seems in the context what it means is the spirit of prophecy, that is the whole purpose and nature of prophecy, is to testify about Jesus, not about the messenger, not about the prophet, not about the angel who's giving you the prophetic information, but Jesus who is the subject of it. It's testifying about Jesus that prophecy is, and likewise, that's one way to test prophecy. It's when the Bible says, let the prophets speak two or three and let the others judge.

How do you judge prophecy? Well, it should be testifying about Jesus, or it should be testifying from Jesus, but in any case, Jesus is the subject matter and the burden of all legitimate prophecy. The spirit of prophecy wants to talk about Jesus. Of course, it could be said that the testimony of Jesus, not the testimony about Jesus, but Jesus' own testimony is what prophecy is.

The prophet is speaking Jesus' testimonies, Jesus' words. It could go either way, but Jesus is definitely the focus of real prophecy. It's either referring to what he is testifying through the prophet, or that the prophet is testifying about Jesus.

In any case, it's all about Jesus, not about the messenger. Verse 11, Verse 12, Verse 13, Verse 14, Verse 15, Seemingly a very gory outcome here, but what is it, and when is it? Well, of course, I think many of us have been conditioned to see this as the second coming of Christ, and maybe it is. I'm not going to rule that out.

We've had the marriage feast has come, and it was announced upon the demise of the harlot, but through the entire age of the church, the Gentiles are being brought in since the city of the first invited guests, who didn't come, has been burned down. The invitation to the wedding has gone out to the highways and byways, and they're bringing people in, and eventually the doors will be closed, and it will be time for the joining of the bride and the groom, and that joining is, I believe, at the second coming of Christ, where we actually see his face and are with him. But in the meantime, it's the wedding feast, the long feast until the bride and groom join and go off on their honeymoon.

Now, this is either describing the coming of that time when Jesus returns, and that is entirely possible in the context, or it is talking about that same time from another angle, which is another possibility. Jesus is seen on a white horse. Now, heaven opened, and he saw a white horse, but that doesn't mean the horse was coming down from heaven.

We kind of picture it that way, Jesus returning on a white horse, and the armies of heaven with him on white horses, and he's striking the nations, slaughtering the people, and so forth, so that there's these corpses everywhere, and the birds are gorged on their flesh. That could be true, because when Jesus comes back, we are told in 2 Thessalonians 1.8, 2 Thessalonians 1.8 says that he will come in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God and who do not obey the gospel. So, there is a destructive event on all the wicked when Jesus comes back, and this could be depicting it.

If it is, it's in a symbolic form, because, of course, the striking of the nations is with the sword out of his mouth. I believe that Jesus doesn't have a literal sword hanging out of his mouth, and while Jesus comes back, I don't think it's going to be really a sword battle when he comes. I mean, this is a language of ancient warfare, riding horses, and so forth.

Now, I realize that many Christians, and in Christian art, it's depicted sometimes that Jesus returns on a white horse. Maybe, but I think not. I am of the opinion that heaven doesn't have stalls of horses and armies that ride horses.

Now, we could be wrong about that. I could be wrong about that, but I just don't think we're called upon to believe or picture it that way, that right now in heaven there's someone taking care of thousands of horses and stalls, waiting for this day for Jesus to come back. Of all the other references to Jesus coming back, there's never a reference to him riding a horse, and when he ascended into heaven, he did not ascend on a horse, and the angels said he would return in like manner as he went away.

Now, I suppose all those things could be true, and he could still come back on a horse, but there's certainly nothing elsewhere in Scripture to associate him as a rider on a horse at his coming. If you've ever pictured it that way, it's this passage and this passage alone that has come to your mind. And so it could be a reference to the second coming of Christ at the end of the long wedding feast, at the time when he comes to actually be joined with his bride at his second coming, but it's not necessary.

I think it may be the best way to look at it, but there's always been an alternative view of this that makes some sense, and that is that this is not talking about his second coming, but about the warfare he conducts winning the world through the preaching of the gospel in the present age. He's depicted as the word of God, a title for Jesus that's not used by anyone except John in his writings. Of course, John uses that title in John 1, 1, where he calls Jesus the Word He uses that title in 1 John 1, 1, where he calls him the Word, and now he calls him the Word again.

But remember, there's lots of titles by which Jesus could be called. He could be called the Prince of Peace. He could be called the Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God.

He could be called Emmanuel. He could be called the Branch. You can call him a lot of different things, but in this vision, he is depicted specifically as the Word of God.

It is the Word of God who is depicted as conquering the nations here, and specifically with the weapon of what proceeds out of his mouth, which is a sharp, two-edged sword, a not too well concealed image for his words. What comes out of a mouth is someone's words. And if we didn't even have the confirmation of Ephesians 6, 17, which says that we take the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God in Ephesians 6, 17, or of Hebrews 4, 12, where it says, the Word of God is alive and powerful and sharper than a two-edged sword.

These images of the Word of God being sword-like elsewhere in Scripture only confirm what we would perhaps deduce without those confirmations, that what comes out of a man's mouth is his words, and therefore Christ's words strike the conscience of men like a sword. And we saw in an earlier lecture when we were talking about Isaiah 11, how that if you turn to Hosea 6, 5, which we won't do right now, it says that God, through the prophets, had hewed and slain the people of Israel. Now the prophets didn't really hew and slay people, not literally, but their words did.

And so also Christ, his words like a sword slay, not literally, not physically, although the language certainly is that of physical carnage. Dead bodies everywhere, birds eating them, certainly the imagery is played up to the hilt. No pun intended about the hilt.

But the truth is that in the apocalyptic language it is possible that we're looking at a spiritual victory, a spiritual set of victories. The fact that he's on a horse even may suggest this very thing. Why so? Because if you look back at Zechariah chapter 10, Zechariah chapter 10 and verse 3, not talking about this, but talking about actually, I believe, the Maccabean War.

In my opinion, I believe that Zechariah 10 is talking about the Maccabean War. But in describing it quite figuratively, Zechariah 10, 3 says, My anger is kindled against the shepherds and I will punish the goat herds for the Lord of hosts will visit his flock, the house of Judah and will make them his royal horse in the battle. That is to say, in God's battle against his enemies, he will take his people, Judah, and ride upon them as it were.

Make them his horse in the battle. They will be the vehicle that carries him forward in the battle. And that imagery could well be implied here.

Christ is not seen necessarily coming down from heaven. The heavens open just means he's seen to have a vision and it's taking place up there, you know, above him. He's watching this drama.

And this rider on the white horse does not necessarily appear to be moving vertically but horizontally going to all the nations around the globe and striking them with the sword and conquering them with the sword of his mouth. Carried along on a white horse. If the church could be viewed as the horse and the sword as his word, then it's a very simple matter to identify this as the gospel going forth to the nations defeating them.

But of course, the gospel defeats us. It has defeated all of us. We were his enemies and now he's conquered us with his gospel.

We're now his friends. We've now been slain. We've taken up our cross.

We've died to ourself. It's no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me. And therefore, there is a sense in which the language of this can be applied to something that is not the second coming of Christ but rather the going forth of the gospel to the nations and making its conquests there.

And like I said, every one of us in this room is one who has been conquered. We were born enemies of God but today we're his friends. What happened? He defeated us.

He conquered us. He overthrew the resistance. And he didn't do it by force.

He did it by his word, by his gospel preached to us. And so, this is an alternative way that many people have seen it. Now, I will say that it's difficult to see it that way to tell you the truth partly because of the graphic imagery of carnage and dead bodies and things like that.

And it doesn't seem like a positive image. You'd think that conquering the world with the gospel and converting people, that'd be a very positive, upbeat image to see all these people coming to Christ. And instead, it looks like they're totally destroyed.

And therefore, it may raise questions about this. It depends, of course, on the degree to which a person is willing to disattach himself from anything like a literal interpretation and just get from this the idea that the nations are under attack by the church with the gospel. Satan's kingdom is being defeated.

The beast and the false prophet are actually ultimately defeated. And I think that will not happen until the end. That is the final outcome of this war is the defeat of the beast and the false prophet.

And I suspect that that is at the second coming of Christ. I say that because Paul talks about his enemies being destroyed, that is, God's enemies being destroyed at the final day. We read in 2 Thessalonians 2 that the man of sin, the son of perdition, will be consumed and destroyed by the brightness of Christ's coming.

We read in 1 Corinthians 15 that Christ must continue, as he does now, to reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. You and I are some of the enemies that have already come under his feet, but he's going to put all his enemies under his feet. And the last enemy he's going to defeat is death.

And that happens at the resurrection. So there is a... Christ is reigning at the right hand of God, defeating, one by one, all who stand in opposition to him. Fortunately, this defeat that he is accomplishing is a benign defeat in that he conquers us by winning us.

You know, Abraham Lincoln was criticized by his friends because he was a little too generous even toward his political opponents. And they said, Mr. Lincoln, don't you understand that it's the nature of politics that you need to defeat your adversaries? And he said, well, if I turn my adversaries into my friends, haven't I defeated my adversaries? And that's, in a sense, the way that Christ defeats his adversaries. He turns them into his friends.

He takes those who are enemies of God and redeems them, saves them, transforms them, gives them a new heart of flesh instead of the heart of stone, puts his spirit within them and makes disciples out of them. This is how the nations are to be conquered. But ultimately, of course, there will be a judgment.

And when he arrives, those who remain resistant will, in fact, be consumed by the brightness of his appearing. Those who resist him to the end will be judged. And so it may well be that verses 11 through 16 are really describing the progress of the gospel.

Very much the same thing as in the parable of the wedding feast after the city was burned down, the messengers were sent out to the highways and byways to bring them all in, the Gentiles. And that process could be seen in terms of the spiritual warfare that the scripture elsewhere teaches of us being engaged in. Paul talks about us, we're the ones wielding the sword.

We're the church. We're carrying the word of God. We take the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, and we go out and we penetrate the enemy's territory and use the gospel to bring people over to Christ's side.

He defeats those enemies by making them friends just like he did to you and me. But then it may also be that verses 17 through 21 look at the end of that process. At the very end, when he's conquered all that he will conquer by the word, then he appears.

And it's annihilation. It's destruction. It's judgment.

And the beast and the false prophet, we're told in verse 20, are captured alive and thrown into the lake of fire. We're not told that here, but in the next chapter their experience in the lake of fire is described for us. In chapter 20 in verse 10, where we read, the devil who deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are.

And they will be tormented day and night, forever and ever. Of course, the degree to which we are supposed to take literally this forever and ever may be open to question in view of some of the passages we've seen about other things that are said to be forever or eternal, which is using hyperbole. But even if this is literal, I'd point out that the only persons that are said to be tormented in the lake of fire forever and ever are the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet, none of which are actually humans.

I mean, the beast and the false prophet, I believe, are systems, not individual people. Later on in Revelation 20, we'll see that death and Hades, verse 14, chapter 20, verse 14, death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. Death and Hades are not people either.

They are personified in the book of Revelation, but they're not people. So, in the lake of fire, we find these characters in the drama, as it were. All the bad guys end up in the lake of fire.

And so do the people who resist him. In verse 15 of chapter 20, anyone not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. And so we first read of the lake of fire here in chapter 19, verse 20, and that's the place where the beast and the false prophet are tossed in alive.

Then we read of the devil being thrown in there in chapter 20, verse 10. And then we read of death and Hades being cast in there in verse 14. Then verse 15 of chapter 20, we find all the people who aren't written in the book of life cast in there.

But the only parties that are actually said to be tormented there permanently are the devil and the beast and the false prophet. We're not told that death and Hades are tormented or that the people are tormented. You can throw different objects into the same fire.

Some of them will burn up. Some of them will be sanitized. But it's the same fire.

And so we'll talk more, of course, about the lake of fire when we come to chapter 20, although there will be other things in chapter 20 that will command our attention more importantly. So I just wanted to point out at this point, with the first appearance of the lake of fire, the first parties thrown in apparently are the beast and the false prophet. But then eventually everyone who's opposed to God ends up in that place.

And thus, whether the rider on the white horse is or is not, in reference to the second coming of Christ, it would appear that the closing verses of chapter 19 are best related to the second coming of Christ because we find no more of the beast or false prophet after that point on earth. And that would seem to suggest the end of the world and the second coming of Jesus Christ. And then we come to chapter 20, which we will do after we take a break.